Sister's Keeper
by wandertogondor
Summary: It was Valarie's job to make sure Jo was safe. When Jo sneaks out to help the Winchester's and Ellen gets wind of it, Val has to pay the price for her negligence.


Val Harvelle was halfway through polishing off her own bottle of beer when Ellen came through the front doors. Sweeping her eyes over the messy Roadhouse for a once over, Ellen turned to where her oldest daughter sat with the bottle poised part way up to her lips – awaiting the wrath which would soon spill out of her mother's mouth.

"Valerie Anne Harvelle," Ellen put both hands on her hips and kicked one leg out, "just what the hell do you think you're doing? This place is a mess."

Val's mouth hung open for a split moment while she simultaneously uncluttered the empty thoughts rattling around her brain. "Well, mother, I was just enjoying a pre-cleaning drink."

Ellen crossed her arms, nodding in a seemingly understanding fashion but Val knew that it was just the brief calm before the inevitable storm of her answer repeated in question form. "You were just enjoying a pre-cleaning drink, huh?"

Wide-eyed like a doe in headlights, Val swallowed hard and nodded slowly.

"Where's your sister?"

Hurriedly gathering the empty bottles scattered across the tables into a large tub to make up for wasted time, Val tripped over her words. "I think she and Ash went out to town to search a case for the Winchester's."

"The Winchester's? Valarie," her mother snapped curtly and loudly began collected glasses from the tables nearby, "I told you to keep your eye on her. I _told _you to make sure she kept her hands clean."

"Mom, there's only so much I can do between running the bar, breaking up fights, and making sure Jo stays safe."

"But you know about the Winchester's, Val." Ellen slammed the glasses on the bar-top, nearly shattering the bases. "You know what John did to your daddy. And you know his boys are bound to do the same to your little sister."

"Yeah, but you know Jo. You know that nothing I say or do will keep her from doing what she wants – especially when it comes to Dean Winchester."

Ellen paused and looked at her daughter critically. "Well, _maybe_, you should try harder, Val."

Dumbfounded, Val shook off the painful jab and began going around with a bottle of cleaner and a dishrag, scrubbing the tables clean of spills and chewed up sunflower seeds. Her mother had always been hard on her. Jo dropping out of college and parading back to the Roadhouse was only the beginning. The tension between Jo and Ellen was so thick in the air after the Winchester's came through that Val wished she was the one who had taken the opportunity to try schooling – if only to let her mother and sister settle their differences without her in the middle trying to choose between the two evils.

"I'm going to try harder, mom."

"Puh!" Ellen snorted. "You better."

*****SUPERNATURAL*****

It was around three in the morning when Valerie saw the headlights of Ash's truck pull up in front of the Roadhouse. As she came out of her room and into the main hall, she could hear two doors close and two pairs of booted feet come up the steps and into the building. She stood in the darkness, arms crossed, just waiting for the moment Jo turned the light on to see her standing there.

"Holy shit!" Jo yelped, almost tumbling back into Ash, laughing as she continued, "Val, what the hell are you doing? You scared the shit outta me."

"Mom tore me a new one today because of you," was Val's pointed response.

Jo shrugged and tossed her bag to Ash who disappeared in the back. "So? She does that to us all the time."

"Look, I don't care if you run off with Ash and leave me here to run the place. It's fine. You've been hanging me out to dry to go live a normal life since you were a kid. But don't you _dare_," Val nearly sneered the word in her contempt, "let me take the fall when you're out helping the Winchester's."

"Oh, my god," Jo rolled her eyes. "Mom put you up to this, didn't she?"

"He doesn't give a crap about you, Jo! Dean can do research on his own just fine. You don't have to drop everything here to go and help him."

"You sound just like her."

"No," Val corrected curtly, "No, mom would tell you not to do something without offering any explanation whatsoever. I'm giving you an explanation. I'm telling you that you shouldn't nix your own responsibilities to go help a Winchester. You don't know about them, Jo. Please listen to me. Everyone around them dies. They'll use you until you have nothing left to offer them and then they'll just watch you die and make no effort to stop it."

Jo threw her hands up in the air as if she had no idea what her older sister expected she do. "I don't have time for this, Val. It's three in the morning."

As Jo lazily meandered toward her room, Valarie couldn't help but get her last words in. "This conversation is far from being over, Jo!"

*****SUPERNATURAL*****

"Did you talk to your sister?" were the first words that Val heard as she shuffled behind the bar the next morning. Curling her face up in a disheartened expression, Valarie waved off her mother's question, collapsed in an empty bar stool, and buried her face into her arms.

"Well," Ellen insisted, "did you talk to Jo?"

"Yes."

"What did she say?"

"That she didn't have time for the conversation," she mumbled into her forearm.

"What?" Ellen cupped a hand behind her ear. "What the hell did you just say? Honestly, Valarie, was that English? Pick your head up and talk like an adult."

Doing as she was told, Val squeezed her tired eyes shut to keep the bright sunlight from burning into her sensitive line of sight and picked her head up. "She said she didn't have time for the conversation."

"Didn't have time?" Ellen blanched. "When did she get back?"

"Like, three in the morning."

"Three in the morning!? She's dead. That girl – she's dead. I will kill that child with my bare hands. Where's Ash? ASH!"

Val slowly peeled her eyelids open and waited to get accustomed to the morning light, only catching a glimpse of her mother disappearing into Ash's room, still huffing and puffing. Groaning again in both exhaustion and frustration about being the mediator between Jo and their mother, Val rubbed her eyes once more for good measure and went behind the bar just in time to see Sam and Dean Winchester come in through the doors of the Roadhouse.

"Good morning, Val." Dean leaned up at the bar and greeted her with a smile that would rival the brightness of the sun. "You don't look too hot today. Aren't you happy to see me?"

Val feigned an amused chuckle. "You got a lot of nerve showing up here."

"Why?" Dean looked around in fear, coming in closer with a softened voice. "Is your mom around?"

"Oh, yeah," she replied, "and she's pissed. Who the hell do you think you are calling my sister to do your research? What, you can't read anymore? Gigantor over there," Val made a crude gesture toward Sam, "went to college, didn't he?"

Dean desperately tried to soothe her and lower her voice, frantically look around for any sign of Ellen. "It's not like that, Val. Just hear me out."

"No," was Val's curt remark. "I don't want to hear you out. You Winchester's are all the same. You use people to get your job done, then just drop everything and leave them hanging. I want you to stay away from Jo. Are _you_ hearing me, Dean? Stay away from my little sister."

"Okay," Dean put his hands up in surrender. "Okay. But you gotta know, Jo was the one who called us. She said there was a killer clown on the loose and needed our help."

"Yeah," Sam approached the bar cautiously and confirmed. "Turns out it was a rakshasa – a kind of shape-shifter that can make itself invisible. We're just coming back from killing it. Jo was never in any sort of danger. Come on, Val, you know we would never put her in any situation that would hurt her."

Giving both Winchester's a long, pointed glare, Val finally moved toward the taps to pour them both out a tall beer, moving along to the next patron without a word.

*****SUPERNATURAL*****

Even after getting chewed out by Ellen, the Winchester's decided to stay for a few more hours and into the slow run of the evening when most tables were unoccupied and a glossy dust had settled into the Nebraska air. Dean sat at the bar by himself with a beer while Sam was shacked away listening to Ash explain his newest invention.

Val tossed a dishrag with finality near where Dean was sitting – breathing out deep at the end of the day – and leaned against the bar.

"Hey," he said after a moment of silence, staring down at the bottle of beer in his hand. "Val, I hope you know that I understand what you're going through."

She looked at him with hard speculation. "And what am I going through, Dean? Please enlighten me."

"All this panic about Jo? I get it. That's exactly how I feel about Sam all the time. He could be walking right beside me and I'd get this emptiness at the pit of my stomach just entertaining the thought of him getting hurt. And I know that you're trying to do everything perfectly because that's how your mom raised you after your dad died."

"Don't you dare talk about my dad." Val shook her head like she would never hear it.

Dean nodded. "Okay. Fine. All I'm trying to say is that we're similar. We're both our parent's obedient little soldiers. And I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince you that Jo's safe with us. But she's an adult; she can make her own decisions and take care of herself. Just know that Sam and I will do everything we can to make sure she is out of harms way when she's with us. You have every right to worry, but from one older sibling to another, I give you my word."

Val digested his words in the few seconds that time seemed to stand still. Swallowing hard, she pulled out two beers – one for her and one for Dean. "I'll take your word for it, Winchester. In the few occasions that Jo will be with you and your brother in the hopefully distant future, I won't worry half as much."


End file.
